First week of school & loving it.

um, okay, sorry this is all underlined. I don't know why it's like this and I can't make it go away! Anyway, here it is....

Hi everybody! Well, here I am, one week after my last blog entry, and I'm not only alive and well but actually really enjoying my time here, minus a few minor inconvieniences (like the fact that my computer seems to be suddenly unable to connect to any sort of wi-fi network, even though it tells me I'm connected...) Anyway, though, like I said, for the most part my time here has been great. I am really enjoying the challenge of being back in school, and even though I still can't hold anything close to a normal conversation in Spanish, I definitely feel like I'm starting to get more confident in trying to speak it, and am starting to remember some of the stuff I had forgotten. Because I'm totally trying to make the most of my time here by doing as many of the school's activities as possible, my schedule has actually been pretty hectic so I have barely had time to check email or do too much that isn't school- related. But I feel like the time's been well-spent: so far, in my first week, I participated in a conference on domestic violence in Guatemala, went on a walk up the mountain overlooking Xela and learned a little about native plants that people here have used as medicine and food for centuries, watched a movie about cocaine trafficking and how U.S. drug laws impact the lives of people in Mexico and the U.S., heard from a woman who lives in an autonomous community of ex-guerillas that is now a fair-trade, organic coffee farm, and yesterday we actually went to the farm and helped pick the coffee for several hours before learning about the processes the coffee goes through to become what we think of as "coffee". It was really great- HARD, hard work though, because basically you have a basket strapped to your front via a belt slung around your back, and by the time the basket is nearly full (which was a lot longer for us newbies than for the families who own the farm) it is so heavy it's difficult to move around! One of the girls in our group joked, "is this what it feels like to be 8 months pregnant?" and another woman said, "pretty much, except I don't feel like puking right now." So there you go- two new experiences for the price of one. The girl who came to our school was also our tour guide, and she talked a lot about the benefits and challenges of running an organic, fair-trade coffee farm as opposed to a conventional one, and basically reinforced my beliefs that organic/ fair trade is really, really important, because not only does it allow the workers to earn enough to live on and work in healthier conditions, but it also provides a greater deal of security because the price for fair trade coffee doesn't fluctuate the way it does with conventional coffee. So for instance, on a normal, massive coffee farm, there are rows and rows of monoculture coffee plants with no natural shade to shelter the workers from the blazing sun; the workers are also completely at the mercy of the market economy, because you can bet that if the company is getting a lot less money for their coffee than they had hoped (like if it's been a really abundant year for coffee harvest and the market is flooded), they don't eat the loss, the workers do- they simply either get paid less or get less work. And the really sad thing is that actually almost, if not all organic/ f.t. farms who go to the trouble and expense of getting certified still only are able to sell a percentage of their coffee at those higher rates, cause there simply isn't enough of a market in the U.S. and other places where people are willing to pay a little extra for the og/ f.t. coffee. So after the farms have sold off as much of their coffee at fair trade prices as possible, they usually have to sell the rest at the same regular market rates as the crappy conventional coffee that is way less expensive to produce. So it's a disincentive to other farms to want to try to start going in the direction of organic & fair trade, all because those of us in rich countries are too cheap to spring for an extra buck or two to make sure our lattes are not screwing over the earth and people who grow it.
At lunch, a few of us ended up talking with one of the teachers who came along on the trip to visit an old friend who lives on the farm, and we discovered that she herself was a pirate radio operator for 9 years of the war, and she told us about how she was 23 when she left university to join the resistance, thinking that the war would be over within 2 or 3 years. But in actuality it lasted nearly 20 during which she was a nurse in addition to running the radio stations, and by the time she went back to school she was 41 and feeling very strange to be the only person over 21 in her university classes. But she stuck it out and wound up getting degrees in psychology, nursing, and teaching, and now works both at our school and at a mental health clinic about an hour and a half outside of Xela. The thing is, she is so beautiful and has such an optimistic way of talking about these really intense things that when she told us she is 51, none of us could believe it. I feel so lucky right now to be surrounded by so many amazing people! The history of Guatemala is so complex and so sad, but it's amazing to me that so many folks are still around and really willing to talk about what it was like and still be actively engaged in trying to make things better here, despite all the trauma they have experienced. So yeah, our day at the coffee farm was definitely great and I'm glad we got to go. I may even go back up there sometime in a few weeks and stay a little longer, but I'd like to go when my Spanish is better.
On a totally different note, last night I went out with a little posse I've found of other rad queer ladies, and we went to check out the gay bar, which just by it's very existence here is something of a miracle. What I discovered is that a) Drag queens are the same everywhere; b) Mainstream gay male culture in Guatemala is just as much of a beauty contest as everywhere else (there was little a "Mister Gay Xela" contest happening), and c) lots of the gay boys here are actually more than happy to try to pick up on the dykes as any straight guy, which was a bit obnoxious. But overall, it was a really fun experience full of glitter and temporary moments of sudden "shushing" as the word "policía!" (police) rippled through the crowd, only to have the music start up again as soon as the danger, real or imagined, had passed.
Other than that, I have been staying with a host family since Monday, and that is going pretty well although the mom is totally not comprehending that I really do need protein in my diet, despite my requests for beans with my meals. She's a good cook though, and it's nice not to have to worry about cooking for myself, even though sometimes I would actually love nothing more. The first day after I arrived, she went out and basically bought every kind of fruit at the market, sort of thinking that was probably the only thing I could eat. So it's been nice to have lots of fresh tropical fruit around, though it leaves me hungry in the morning so I've taken to making some oatmeal as well and eating that. I just now went and bought some beans though, so for lunch I will definitely have some now. But yeah, the family is really nice; there are two boys living at home, one 17 and one 7. The 7-year-old is home a lot more, so we watch cartoons together and attempt conversation pretty often, which is fun. Then there's the 19-year-old daughter, who doesn't live at home anymore but hangs out there a lot; she's really friendly too. And finally there's Walter, their oldest boy, who is 28 and, as they say here (as in the U.S.), is "especial"- meaning he has Down's Syndrome. He lives with his grandmother, and the two of them come over every morning for breakfast and then to go to the market with the mom. The dad doesn't talk a lot but is pretty nice; he kind of just hangs in the background and lets the mom do her thing, because she is a force to be reckoned with. She's super outgoing and vivacious, and overall they seem like a pretty modern, definitely more middle-class family than lots of others here in Guatemala. I even caught the dad doing the dishes, which apparently is still something of a faux-pas here. The local women I've spoken with talk a lot about the construct of "machismo," and basically from what I've gathered it seems like there is definitely still a prevailing culture of extreme machismo and oppression of women, but slowly, especially among the younger generation (and, incidentally, the ex-combatants who fought side by side with many strong women) that is starting to go out of style. So while there are still very few resources available to help women change their stations here (especially the indigenous women), there is a lot of hope and a lot of energy behind trying to push things forward.
Anyway, so that's basically been my first week here. I'm going to stick around a while, and may try to make it to Chiapas for an international women's conference that starts on Dec 13th, since it's only about 8 hours or so away and it seems like a shame not to take advantage of the opportunity to go while I have it. I still plan to go to South America of course- I just don't know when exactly! But that's kind of the magic of travelling, isn't it- not having a plan so carved in stone that you miss the important stuff that crops up along the way. I hope this finds you all well and happy- please keep on writing, and I would LOVE to receive letters or any little packages you may feel like sending me (hint hint!) now that I have an address! Take care and huge hugs!
xoxo, pike.